Crafting a potential history of the Jewish Muslim World means taking seriously the fact that we – Muslim Jews – are the living ruins of worlds that imperialism is committed to make disappear. Asking ‘who am I?’ / ‘who are we?’ means breaking apart the cohesiveness and solidity of the identities assigned by settler colonial states to children born within their borders. Azoulay will present her new book The Jewelers of the Ummah – A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World and will focus on her methodological choices of inhabiting the ruins of this world with kin and elected kin, and of engaging with jewelry making as part of this journey.

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay teaches at Brown political theory from an anti-colonial perspective, using photography and material culture. Her latest books: The Jewelers of the ummah – Potential History of The Jewish Muslim World (Verso, 2024), Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (Verso Books, 2019), Civil Imagination – A Political Ontology of photography (revised & augmented edition, 2024, Verso) and From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947–1950 (Pluto Press, 2011); She recently published her first children book Golden Threads (Ayin Press, 2024). Her latest films include the trilogy Unlearning Imperial Plunder: One Thousand and One Jewels (2025), The world like a jewel in the hand (2023), Un-documented (2019); her latest exhibitions: Errata (Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 2019; HKW, Berlin, 2020), and The Natural History of Rape (Berlin Biennale, 2022).

Spring 2025 COLLOQUIUM SERIES

THE CENTER FOR CULTURAL STUDIES hosts a weekly Wednesday colloquium featuring work-in-progress by faculty & visitors. We are pleased to announce our Spring 2025 Series. Sessions begin promptly at 12:15 PM and end at 1:30 PM (PST) in Humanities Building 1, Room 210.

This event is presented by CCS with CMENA and VMCC. Staff assistance is provided by The Humanities Institute.